Saturday, July 19, 2025
Village Voice News
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Village Voice News
No Result
View All Result
Home Letters

ERC still trapped by an old ineffective approach

Staff Reporter by Staff Reporter
November 26, 2020
in Letters
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Dear Editor

The Ethnic Relations Commission announced last week its plan to host a national conversation on ethnic relations to, according to its press release, “have frank and open discussions to capture diverse views on factors that impede ethnic harmony and recommendations for the compilation of a report, to be submitted to the National Assembly and relevant stakeholders for implementation.” The event is slated for mid-December, will span two days, and will give face time to political leaders, youths, and local and overseas presenters. Following the horrific incidents in WCB a few months ago, the ERC was intensely criticized for doing too little too late. Most likely, the commission would think that its two-day national conversation is a robust response both to the WCB events and to its critics. The ERC would be wrong to so assume.

READ ALSO

Renewed Public Appeal for Full Investigation into the Death of Althea “Stacy” Walton and Accountability for Police Handling

Vote on issues and policies and reject race-based voting

To be sure, Guyana needs a national conversation on fostering good ethnic relations, but mainly of a different sort from the ERC’s two-day talk shop. The main national conversation must instead occur at the community and inter-community levels. As the WCB incident showed (if further evidence was needed), it is at these levels that the fear, pain and suffering of bad ethnic relations play out. High-profile conferences in Georgetown, involving political leaders, dignitaries, and academics, reach only so far. The ERC would be badly mistaken should it believe that such talk shops should be its leading tool in fulfilling its vast constitutional mandate. The report from its December event, it is an easy bet to make, could essentially be written as early as today. We would have heard the speeches and recommendations before. And we can predict that any palliative value of such a conversation would quickly fade.

Guyana and the ERC must try something else, something more grassroot, more structured, and more durable. That “something else” must be a focus on working at the community and inter community levels. So convinced, I submitted to the ERC in September the following three recommendations: 1) the ERC should promote the mushrooming of grassroot community or inter-community ethnic relations initiatives.  The objective here should be to get citizens themselves to create and execute programs or activities to foster ethnic harmony in their own spaces. Such initiatives could be encouraged through grants, awards, publicity, and technical advice; 2) the ERC should meet separately with all NDCs and respective village stakeholders across the country. Agenda items for such meetings should include (a) assessing the current state of ethnic relations within each community and between adjacent communities, (b) identification of any tension indicators or potential flash points, and (c) activating prevention measures as necessary. As my third recommendation to the ERC, I advised that it should adopt, flesh out, and promote the suggested alternatives to violent ethnic protests offered by its own commissioner, Pandit Deodat Persaud (https://www.inewsguyana.com/erc-commissioner-urges-alternatives-to-violent-protests/).

In closing, one should remind the ERC that building good ethnic relations (though important) is only one of its three constitutional mandates. Equally critical are its mandates involving (i) the detection, prevention, and elimination of ethnic discrimination, and (ii) the promotion of equality of opportunity regardless of ethnicity. These two mandates shift the focus away from inter-community and interpersonal relations towards the governmental systems and institutions that determine our life opportunities; who gets what, when or if at all. One senses that over the years, the ERC has mistakenly conflated these three connected but distinct mandates under the lone umbrella of good ethnic relations. These mandates should be unraveled and tackled separately.

The ERC needs to take stock of these and several other issues. It must at least begin by understanding that fulfilling its mission would demand far more than intermittent public appeals,  national conferences, and culture shows.

Yours Faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe

ShareTweetSendShareSend

Related Posts

Letters

Renewed Public Appeal for Full Investigation into the Death of Althea “Stacy” Walton and Accountability for Police Handling

by Admin
July 18, 2025

Dear Editor We, the Bartica United Youth Development Group (BUYDG), write this letter on behalf of concerned citizens, grieving family...

Read moreDetails
Letters

Vote on issues and policies and reject race-based voting

by Admin
July 18, 2025

With regional and general election campaigns ongoing across Guyana by the contesting political parties.  The United Workers Party is calling...

Read moreDetails
Letters

U.S. sanctions were catalyst for Mohamed’s decision to run for President

by Admin
July 17, 2025

Dear Editor, Permit me to share with the nation my thoughts on the rise of Mr Azruddin Mohamed and his...

Read moreDetails
Next Post

Questions about UWI and the University of Guyana joint venture


EDITOR'S PICK

Investigation Launched into Dengue-Related Death of Lokesh Ibrahim

May 10, 2025
President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali at the Holi festival at State House in New Amsterdam, Region Six

“Colour cannot be the reason we are divided” – President Ali at Holi Festival

March 25, 2024
Spanish oil firm Repsol says it is trying to clean the spill up "a quickly as possible"

Peru oil spill after Tonga eruption bigger than previously thought 

January 30, 2022
Timothy Jonas

Jonas to write President over SC appointment

October 29, 2020

© 2024 Village Voice

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us

© 2024 Village Voice